"Sights, Scenes and Wonders at the World's Fair" reads the title, printed on the front cover in embossed, elaborate gold-leaf script. The first page of this Gem Edition explained that this was the "official book of views of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition" - another name for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Mo.
(Staten Island Advance/Virginia N. Sherry)

STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. - STAPLETON - On a recent midday walk in the neighborhood with Carrie, his 6-year-old Puggle dog, Robert McCormick returned home with proof of the adage that one man's trash is another's treasure.

The avid reader noticed a box of old books outside a home on St. Paul's Avenue, and could not resist taking a look.

Most of the volumes were self-help books, although he did find a few American Heritage hardbacks.

Then he spied a small paperback, published in 1904, in mint condition.

"Sights, Scenes and Wonders at the World's Fair" read the title, printed on the front cover in embossed, elaborate gold-leaf script.

The first page of this Gem Edition explained that this was the "official book of views of the Louisiana Purchase Exposition" – another name for the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Mo.

The book presents page after page of black-and-white photographs of the fairgrounds' monumental architecture and other attractions "reproduced from Goerz Lens photographs specially made for official publications," wrote the publisher, the St. Louis-based Official Photographic Company.

The little volume's price, 25 cents, was printed on the front page.

"Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're going to get," McCormick said philosophically about his new-found historic treasure.

PALACES AND CASCADES

Almost 1,500 buildings – including a number of spectacular "palaces" – were constructed for the St. Louis World's Fair. These included individual buildings representing 50 countries from around the world and 43 U.S. states.

The fairgrounds' sprawling site filled 1,200 acres of former woodland in Forest Park and Clayton.

The massive Palace of Agriculture covered 23 acres, featured products from the U.S. and abroad, and contained a dairy farm and cider mill, among other attractions.

Festival Hall, designed by famed architect Cass Gilbert, included a 4,500-seat auditorium and what was then believed to be the world's largest pipe organ. The Cascades, in front of the Hall, pumped 45,000 gallons of water a minute into a Grand Basin.

Gilbert also designed the Palace of Fine Arts, the only structure from the World's Fair to survive to this day. It is the home of the St. Louis Art Museum, located at One Fine Arts Drive in Forest Park, and was designated a city landmark in 1969.

FERRIS WHEEL

One of the top attractions at the St. Louis World's Fair was the soaring Observation Wheel – the original, reassembled "Ferris Wheel" that engineer George Washington Gale Ferris designed and built for the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1893.

Rising to the height of a 26-story building, it featured 36 gondolas, each with 40 seats and standing room for 20 people.

The St. Louis World's Fair opened to the public on April 30, 1904. When it closed on Dec. 1 of the same year, an estimated 20 million people had passed through the gates.